What were your 'frugal' wedding things that weren't worth the hassle?

I see so many DIY articles and websites when it comes to weddings, but as you know some of it can be really time consuming to save a few bucks. Were/are there any regrets that you’ve experienced in your DIY adventures that you would do differently now?

We hired a florist but to save some money, I ordered bulk hydrangeas, lily grass, and petals from Sam’s Club for ceremony decor and centerpieces. At the time, I wished we had paid the extra money for the florist to do it because we had to be home to sign for the delivery, cut and store them, bring them to the venue, and arrange them ourselves on the day of. In the end, I’m happy we did it this way because the flowers were gorgeous and it saved us a lot of money, but now I’m stuck with lots of buckets and vases that I’m not sure what to do with yet. 😉

I also wish I had gotten my seating chart display professionally printed on Etsy or something. I had made a framed fabric covered magnetic board (that was totally worth DIY-ing btw), and my plan was to print a list of guests sitting at each table on a nice cardstock. I designed them on Publisher at work and saved it to my Google drive so that I could print them at home. My printer wasn’t able to feed the cardstock, so I went to FedEx/Kinkos to get it done there. They weren’t able to open the Publisher file and after trying different options there for an hour, I still didn’t have them printed out. I ended up redoing everything on my home computer and printing them out on regular printer paper. It didn’t look as nice as I had hoped for and it wasn’t worth all the trouble I went through, but at least I had a display.

I really enjoyed my DIY stuff because I love crafts and sell some of the stuff I made. One thing I would’ve changed though was paying for rentals instead of buying it myself. I bought 28 Ikea lanterns in tin instead of renting them and now I have 21 Ikea lanterns in my basement, **smacks head** I use some for decor, gave some to family, and some broke, but the fact remains that I have a bajillion lanterns that I should have rented instead for the same amount of $$! We also had to deal with the hassle of transporting them, packing them, etc.

So bottom line, it may seem expensive to rent some things, but in the long run it’s worth it.

saschasoulrebel: I am still planning but feel like I am going to regret the DIY. Ive been upset that I cut a lot out but despite that the wedding would still be around 20k. At that time I had decided no flowers, no programs, no engagement party/bridal shower/bachellorette party. I did DIY STDs for $14.95 for 100 postcards (WIN!). So now I’ve decided to make my own plus 5 BM’s fabric bouquets AND make the fabric flowers for it (IDIOT), DIY invitations, no transportation and am considering no DJ-ipod wedding, DIY lighting, DIY fake tiered cake made out of foam/fabric and serving supermarket sheet cake, and DIY centerpieces. I am making my life hell but I am sick of the disappointment that comes with contacting multiple unresponsive vendors. I kind of feel like the DIY regret will still be better than the regret I would have if i continued to be super frustrated and upset trying to find vendors.

saschasoulrebel: i seriously dont think i DIY’d anything that i regret…except all the work i put my mom, aunt, and grandmother up to when i asked if they would make homemade pound cakes in various flavors as our “wedding cakes”. i didn’t think about how close to the date they had to be made, and we needed 11 to feed the whole guest list…so bless their hearts they were up cooking the night before our rehearsal day til like 2 am. but the cakes were lovely and they received the recognition they deserved when everyone realized they were eating fresh, homemade cake!

Anything on paper is not worth it. Handwriting invitation inserts or signs to be displayed at the ceremony or at the escort card table or really anywhere at all is just sooooooooooooooo not worth it. Find a vistaprint coupon and just print that stuff out.

Handwriting addresses is I guess some insane rite-of-passage etiquette that we all must do. But anything else – go digital. It will come out sooooo much better. Nothing ever looks like it does on pinterest.

DIY always seems like a great idea when you’re trying to cut costs, but anything that you need to store and transport yourself the day of is absolutely not worth it – unless you know a lot of people who drive big cars and will help with heavy lifting! Things like furniture, flowers, cake should just be left to the pros.

I really want to DIY a cardbox, but I feel like it’s going to turn out tacky. I’m going to do my own programs, menus, name placecards, etc. When I look at how much work there is, it feels overwhelming. I have to DIY a lot of things to keep within budget. It seems everyone has to make a lot of things to save money. There are parts of me that can’t pay high prices when I know I can do it for less. I was just curious if for some items I should budget more and skip the DIY aspect

saschasoulrebel: I decided to make the jewelry for my bridesmaids, because I wanted a specific shade of green and the only ones I found were $60+. After I made the first necklace, I decided it looked cheap/stupid, so I gave up and bought some at Charming Charlie’s instead for about $15. So much better!

My biggest “frugal” regret (not DIY) was getting the lowest of the low video package with the thinking that I had already spent so much but after the wedding all I wanted was the full video and it was too late because the guy only had bare minimum footage to work with.

also I bought a lot of decor to keep the florist cost down and even though I asked a family member to set it up they didn’t do it correctly and the venue just ended up tossing it in a closet before the wedding because it looked like trash (boxes of lanterns that were suppose to be on the patio) – not only did I waste hundreds on the lanterns but in the end there were no lights on the patio at all and my guests ended up sitting out there in the dark to smoke their cigs …..would have been better to just have the florist do less and had something

I’d disagree with some of the posters. I did calligraphy for all of my invitations, and guests raved about it for months. Since people so rarely handwrite envelopes, they felt like they received a work of art (at least that’s what they said). I even saw the envelopes on some people’s fridges, and my grandma framed hers!

I only regret trying to make bridesmaid totes with iron on and canvas totes. The iron on looked so chinsy. I should have just ordered them from vistaprint! I didn’t realize vistaprint did totes under after I had already bought the totes etc.

I also regret ordering orchid plants through an online vendor instead of the florist. They refunded the money because they weren’t blooming when they arrived, but it was a big hassle to get new ones to replac ethem.

At the end of the day, it depends on how much you enjoy the process. I love making things, so it was less about the money and more about that personal touch. Guests seemed to really appreciate it.

I’m in the process of some DIYing at the moment. It’s so tempting to try DIY everything but you have to draw a line somewhere.

DIY that has worked and been worth it:

BM and FG dresses – so much cheaper and easier than buying off the rack, and we got exactly what the girls wanted

Centrepieces/tablecloths – I purchased everything myself and hired a decorator for the things I couldn’t do (e.g. ceiling drapes). The decorator likes my things so much, she has offered to purchase them after the wedding

Bridal backdrop – we’re saving around $450 by making our own backdrop. I got the idea off Etsy and it cost $50 in materials.

DIY that wasn’t worth it:

I printed our STDs at home – they looked cool but they weren’t worth the work. I told my FI I was happy to pay to have the invitations printed (though we still hand-addressed the envelopes) to save the grief of printer mishaps

Cake – my partner is a chef and wanted to make our cake. I convinced him that he didn’t need that stress of the wedding week.

Decorations – although we’re doing most of our deocrating ourselves, we hired a professional decorator for the more complicated decorations (ceiling, lighting). We could have probably done it for half the cost, but we didn’t want the stress before the wedding!

I started to make DIY red rose petal runners for our outdoor wedding. It is a beautiful idea, but very time consuming. In the end, our wedding colour ended up being raspberry pink, so I didn’t have the guts to use the runner which took HOURS to do! We had a single giant rose in pew bows lining the aisle- simple, beautiful, and perfect for our surroundings. I also was going to do DIY centre piece vases out of wine bottles spray painted in gold… in the end, we rented our vases.

The only things that ended up being DIY were our place card holders, which were made out of wine corks (we were married at a vineyard). Another thing I did was ordered ribbon that was personalized with our names, cut and tied bows, and hot-glued them to our wedding favour boxes.

I love crafting, but I lacked time and patience leading up to the big day. Truthfully, the whole DIY thing wasn’t for me… I didn’t trust myself or others to have things turn out as beautiful as a Pintrest photo!!!!! I would rather pay a few extra bucks to save precious sanity prior to a wedding, but that is just me. I admire brides who can do such beautiful DIY jobs 🙂